Monday, May 30, 2016

UNC System President Margaret Spellings told a
federal court Friday that the University of North Carolina system will not enforce a state law that says that people much use a bathroom that corresponds to the gender on their birth certificate.

“I have no intent to exercise my authority to promulgate any guidelines
or regulations that require transgender students to use the restrooms
consistent with their biological sex,” Spellings wrote in an affidavit
filed as part of a motion to halt civil legal proceedings against the
university system.

Friday, May 27, 2016

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) in a speech on the Senate floor yesterday praised the USWNT for
winning its third World Cup title last July and the past three Olympic
gold medals.

“But despite all of these tremendous successes, these players do not
get paid on par with their male counterparts. This isn’t just about the money. It’s also about the message it
sends to women and girls across our country and the world. The pay gap between the men and women’s national soccer
teams is emblematic of what is happening all across our country.”

The Senate unanimously approved a non-binding resolution calling on the
U.S. Soccer Federation to “immediately end gender pay inequity and to
treat all athletes with the respect and dignity those athletes deserve.”

Glad in the days of the hierarchy-building obstructionist Republicans, they can at least agree on this.

Monday, May 23, 2016

At the National Rifle Association's annual convention in Houston, Texas
this weekend, a company that sells shooting targets "designed to help
YOU prepare for the upcoming Zombie outbreak" offered a human-looking woman who bleeds when you shoot it. The target is named "Ex-Girlfriend." The more you shoot the iconization of the woman, the more she bleeds and her body, once supposedly sexy, becomes mangled.

These men who manage the NRA are not rational about gun violence. Every day three women are killed by their intimate partners.

Friday, May 20, 2016

Abortion and bathroom bills. Those Republicans in Oklahoma just can't go far right enough it seems in showing how much they support the gender and LGBT hierarchies.

First the Republicans voted (the legislature was split along party lines) to basically ban abortion in the state, even though it is a constitutional right. Republican Governor Mary Fallin, who endorsed Donald Trump in hopes of being on his ticket, has vetoed the bill, not because she doesn't agree wholeheartedly, but because it would cost a lot to defend it.

Now these same Republicans are urging Congress to impeach Obama over the administration's recent
recommendations that public schools accommodate transgender students in
bathrooms.

With the Republican party as we know it now and the hierarchies they champion in a death struggle they certainly are struggling.

Sunday, May 15, 2016

"But I also think there are things from many years ago and I think
that, you know, as Christians, judging each other I think is -- is
problematic. I think it's when people live in glass houses and throw
stones is when people get in trouble."

Reince Priebus thinks we should ignore Trump's attitudes about women. Obviously he has not lived with sexist bosses, misogynist neighbors, living with 24/7 possibility of sexual assault, an unwanted pregnancy when the man goes free, and the list goes on. He has not been affected by lawmakers who continue to ignore the well-being of women.

What Trump thinks of women has everything to do with whether or not he is qualified to be President. Does Priebus's "glass houses" statement mean that he thinks that Trump's ideas about women should be the norm for men? Maybe so, given the laws Republicans have supported in the past few decades.

Friday, May 13, 2016

The top of the hierarchy thinks that the lives of everyone else should revolve around them, and they have power over everyone else. Since rape is about power, men supposedly must have power to create women's feelings.

Such is the case with male film makers, according to what Jodie Foster just saw at Cannes.

"I wonder why she was a box of tears?" Foster asked, speaking as a hypothetical male writer. "Oh, she was raped.
Or if a female character is having trouble with her boss, Foster said
writers will often reason, "Well, it was because she was raped and
you’re going to find that out in the end.”

She added, "It was ridiculous, it was every single movie I saw.
If you really got to what was the overriding motivation that that woman
that you found out at the end, it was always rape because for some
reason men saw that as this incredibly dramatic thing. 'Well that’s
easy! I can just pluck that one out of the sky and apply it to her.' ”

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

In an article in Huffington Post, Linda Seabrook and Quentin Walcott say it is time to rename our discussions about issues that involve both men and women. From sexual and domestic
violence to reproductive rights to paid family leave, our society neatly categorizes issues where women bear the
brunt of the burden as “women’s issues,” turning them into problems for
women and women’s rights advocates alone to solve.

They say that this framing
couldn’t be more wrong, and only serves to reinforce the practice of
victim blaming that is so pervasive in our society.

One of the first steps men can take in combating violence against women
is to question and challenge traditional gender roles, and listen to the
voices of women and girls. Breaking the cycle of violence starts with addressing how boys are conditioned to model “male” behavior and attitudes.

In Minnesota, college baseball teams will not be allowed to travel to North Carolina to participate in national tournaments. The presidents
of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system made that decision after
Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton banned state-sponsored travel to North
Carolina in the aftermath of the anti-LGBT law enacted in March.

According to the writers of this article, it's on the head of the NCAA for not moving the tournament
immediately when this bill was passed. They could have avoided this
mess.